ERA09FA524 · Curtis John P SEA REY
Curtis John P SEA REY · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin while maneuvering
From Lake Eloise, FL to Lake Eloise, FL
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09FA524
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Curtis John P SEA REY
- Aircraft type
- Curtis John SEA REY
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N563JL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Eloise, FLTo Lake Eloise, FL
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight crew departed from a freshwater lake to conduct takeoffs and landings, including several simulated engine-out landings. The left-seat pilot landed in one of the lakes and then took off. When the airplane was about 400 feet above ground level, the pilot in command, seated in the right seat, announced a simulated engine failure and reduced the power to idle. The left-seat pilot pushed the stick forward to attain an approximately 15-degree nose-down attitude in order to maintain 70 mph and recalled announcing that they were at 70 mph. He then turned left to return to the lake for a landing, as there was no safe place in front to land. Halfway through the turn he visually located the landing spot. Rolling out of the turn into the final approach, in about 10 to 15 degrees of bank, the roll stopped without any change to his flight control inputs. The passenger checked the airspeed and assessed the attitude of the airplane before adding about a third of throttle for additional engine power. At this time, the airplane rolled left and the nose dropped fast. The airplane was low and impacted the water in a vertical position. A witness observed the airplane land and then take off. The plane lifted off and appeared normal until the airplane reached about 100 feet above the water. The airplane dipped to the left and then it seemed to overcorrect itself to the right as it entered the water flat. Examination of the wreckage, engine, and the turbo control unit did not reveal any discrepancies that would have prevented normal operation of the airplane.
Probable cause
The flightcrew's failure to maintain adequate airspeed while maneuvering during a simulated engine failure, resulting in an aerodynamic stall and uncontrolled descent.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09FA524
- Event ID
- 20090917X40933
- Case number
- ERA09FA524
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 497af551c688ed68493771a2c8fd0846e55b566e7cc2c2c817e4691c1b03a16e; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:18:56.920Z.